Apathy
by Eleret
Summary: Post-OotP! “He never smiles. He never laughs. He never frowns. He never does goddamn anything anymore. He’s blank. He doesn’t even look or feel like a person anymore. Just some sort of blank…nothing.” Harry’s apathetic. Hermione’s determined
1. Prologue

**Title: Apathy (1/?): Prologue**

**Author:** Eleret 

**Author E-mail:** Eleret@aol.com  

**Category:** Angst/Romance/Drama 

**Keywords:** Hermione Harry Draco Apathy Love Hate 

**Rating:** PG-13

**Spoilers:** PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, **OotP**

**Summary:** **Post-OotP!** "He never smiles. He never laughs. He never frowns. He never does goddamn _anything anymore. He's blank. He doesn't even look or feel like a person anymore. Just some sort of blank…nothing." Harry's apathetic. Hermione's determined. Draco's scared. Slash. _

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** Well, here it is. My first post-OotP work. This is sort of a tester-chapter, to see if anyone likes this. I know I haven't done anything for _ages _and I'm really sorry! But first it was writer's block and then it was OotP, which gave me a ton of plot bunnies but also meant I had to get rid of some old ones. I don't know what I'm doing about UM yet. I might finish it, but I'm warning those of you who have read so far that I probably won't. I'm really sorry, but I hate writing AUs and if I were to finish it it would have to be AU. I might, though, because I still really do like the plot. But don't get your hopes up. So, about this story. Well, in the past months I've been thinking a lot about Harry's characterization, post-OotP. And I really don't know what he'd be like. I do like the way Harry turned out in OotP, though. It's so much easier to make him all angsty and not-caring now. I always liked angsty, not-caring Harry, but before I thought it was sort of OC, and now I don't think so as much. Also, I love Determined!Hermione and…well, I love Draco any which way, as long as he isn't extremely OC without an explanation. And Ron might not be a very big character in this, I'll apologize for that. I love Ron, but I don't know what he's quite doing right now. He doesn't really strike me as the sensitive type, and while that's one of the things that endears him to me, he doesn't really fit in with the plot as he is. So, I looked at all the things I loved and I wanted to write a story that had my other favorite thing – Slash! Particularly of the angsty H/D variety. And this appeared. And that's about it. (This has got to be the biggest A/N I've ever written). Hope you enjoy and please tell me what you think! Also, if anyone wants to beta, I am looking for a beta-reader (yet again). 

**Prologue**

_Days go by I'm hypnotized   
I'm walking on a wire   
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind   
Into the fire   
Light the sky and hold on tight   
The world is burning down   
She's out there on her own and she's alright   
Sunny came home   
Sunny came home..._

_(Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin)_

He doesn't care anymore, you see. That's the problem. He doesn't listen. He doesn't understand. He doesn't want to. He doesn't try. He isn't the same person he used to be. His eyes aren't really green anymore. They're more a sort of murky black with a little bit of green around the edges. They're scary, really. 

He never smiles. He never laughs. He never frowns. He never does goddamn _anything_ anymore. He's blank. He doesn't even look or feel like a person anymore. Just some sort of blank…nothing. 

He walks around, he looks at everything, but he doesn't see any of it. Nothing registers in his brain. It all goes in one ear (or eye) and out the other. He goes through his homework and classes and he does okay, maybe better than before. But he can't play Quidditch any more. He can't feel enough to play Quidditch. 

I'm not sure he even knows he isn't playing. I'm not sure he remembers. I don't think he cares. He doesn't talk anymore, not really. He nods, he agrees – sometimes he even disagrees. But he doesn't really say anything unless drawn into a conversation and spoken to first. 

I touched him once; I hope I never have to again. He was so cold. It was like he wasn't even alive. He felt exactly like how I always thought a Vampire might feel. Only he's not one, because he still eats garlic and goes out in the sunlight and has a reflection (though for how long, I'm not sure, the way he's been). His skin didn't feel real, either. It felt sort of plastic and thick and impenetrable. 

I don't know what happened. He seemed sort of okay when he left for the Dursleys. Well, more okay than he had been, anyway. He wrote everyone over the summer and he seemed fine, but then he came back and he…well…he was like this. 

I don't think he knows what's wrong with him. I don't think he knows anything's wrong with him. But I do think that he left a lot of himself behind the veil with Sirius. And I think that maybe he won't know he's left it until it's back again. I think maybe he thinks that he's fine, that he doesn't notice what he isn't doing and that he doesn't really want to. I think this is his way to cope with loosing the first parent that he ever really knew. I think it's his way of pretending everything is normal. I think he's scared to have any emotions towards anyone anymore – he's afraid of being hurt like that again. 

I've asked Ron what we should do. He doesn't know, of course. He just told me I'd figure it out. "You always do, Hermione," my foot. He's just not willing to try to fix the inner reaches of Harry's mind. He's afraid he'll find something too scary, too hard to deal with. Stupid Ron. 

Really, though, I do understand. Ron's just very uneasy about Harry's state and he's unnerved by anything to do with it. I can't really blame him. 

Harry reminds me of a much less emotional Cho, more than anything; confused and dealing badly and messed up. Of course, there's much less crying and random kissing of people. And much less yelling. But I get the same sort of feeling off of him as I did off her; sort of like a bomb about to explode. Only Harry feels much more dangerous. 

I've tried to find other people to help, too, of course. 

I've tried Ginny, but she was a complete disaster. She apparently just doesn't want anything to do with Harry. I think he's scaring her. I think he reminds her of Tom, especially the way he changed like that. She burst into tears and wouldn't talk about it. I hate when people do that, really I do! 

So then I asked Snape, because he's been doing Occlumency with Harry quite regularly. But he just said that he saw "no reason to _change Mr. Potter's personality as it so much more agreeable than his previous one" and why was it any of __his concern anyway. I hate him, too. I mean, I know that he's not evil or anything, but he's so damn stubborn and apathetic. _

I even tried Luna Lovegood, of all people. She nodded and said that she did see Harry was in pain, but that she thought he should work through it on his own. Maybe she's right, but I wouldn't count on it because look at all the other stuff she says. And then she started talking about her summer vacation…which I need not mention. 

So I have no one else to go to. I'm sure Dumbledore would've done something already if he was going to, so there's no use going to him. And I'm sure that the Order would love to step in but that Dumbledore's stopping them. So I really don't know what to do. I have no idea how to make Harry feel again. But I _will _find one – if it takes me ten thousand centuries, I _will_ find one. And it _will _work. You'd better believe it. 

**Author's Note2: **Well, I just wanted to say again that I hope you enjoyed it. Also, I _huge round of applause and kisses and hugs to all of my lovely reviews. If you've reviewed something I've written then you've made one of my days a little brighter. I'll try to give individual thanks sometime, but I don't have the time at the moment. And one more thing, I apologize for the short length. However, I intend for Chapter One to be longer and more detailed. Also, I intend to switch around POVs, so the next chapter probably won't be Hermione again, although I'm note sure. And that's __really all I have to say. _


	2. Chapter One: Proposition

**Title: Apathy (2/?): Chapter One: Proposition **

**Author:** Eleret 

**Author E-mail:** Eleret@aol.com  

**Category:** Angst/Romance/Drama 

**Keywords:** Hermione Harry Draco Apathy Love Hate 

**Rating:** PG-13

**Spoilers:** PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, **OotP**

**Summary:** **Post-OotP!** "He never smiles. He never laughs. He never frowns. He never does goddamn _anything anymore. He's blank. He doesn't even look or feel like a person anymore. Just some sort of blank…nothing." Harry's apathetic. Hermione's determined. Draco's scared. Slash. _

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** So, here's chapter one. Sorry it took so long to get out. I've actually had it finished for a while, but I was thinking about other stories too and about how this plot was going to go, so I left it for a while. Now, however, here it is. Hope you enjoy and please leave a review with a comment, criticism, or whatever. 

**Chapter One: Proposition **

Hermione had been thinking for quite a while on just how exactly to get Harry to feel again. She had run all the options through her head. She'd thought about all the times when he had seemed at his most alive. And she had come up with a list, which she was now scribbling down as she sat in the empty common room at five o'clock one Monday morning. 

_When he was flying __When we started going through the obstacle course to find the Philosopher's Stone in first year __When he started hearing the Basilisk in second year __When he found out about what we thought Sirius had done in third year __When he fought off the Dementors in third year __When he found out Sirius was innocent in third year __When we went to the Quidditch World Cup summer before fourth year __When he was doing the three tasks in fourth year __When he fought the Imperius Curse in fourth year __When he came to __Grimauld Place__ summer before fifth year __When he started playing Quidditch again in fifth year __When he was teaching the DA in fifth year __When he was fighting the death eaters at the Department of Mysteries in fifth year __During all of his fights with Malfoy _

Hermione had been mulling these events over and over in her mind for a long time. She had created theories and backup theories and counter theories and plots and counter plots. She had worried over it during Charms and Potions and Transfiguration. And she had come to a conclusion which she did not like in the least. 

Hermione had decided that she was going to have to involve Draco Malfoy, something with she sincerely did _not want to do. _

***

It was a bleak morning, gray and cloudy and generally boring. Draco Malfoy didn't mind if the sky was stormy. He didn't hate clouds. He did, however, hate the unimaginative bleakness that hit Hogwarts every November. There weren't any colors or differences or textures in November – it was all the same; all blank and boring. Draco Malfoy hated things that were blank and boring. 

The one nice thing about November was how it seemed to come straight out of a poem. The cold settled in your bones and the dry wind blew brown leaves across your path and _everything_ was dry and cold. Draco was a fan of poetry, although he didn't write any himself. He had a policy of not doing anything unless he had a chance of doing it well, and he had long since decided he had no chance of writing poetry well. But that didn't mean he couldn't read it and appreciate it. 

Unfortunately, some of the greatest poets were _Muggles, of all things. Draco Malfoy did not really hold much respect for Muggles, but he considered poets to be an exception. Really, since poetry was a sort of magic all itself, he reasoned, they weren't really _real_ Muggles. So it didn't count. _

It was that reasoning that had gotten him in trouble with his father, the previous spring. It had happened over Easter vacation. His father had found Draco's large collection of Muggle poetry books that he'd bought from some of the Ravenclaws, and what had ensued had been the first real argument his father and he had had in ten years. His father had threatened to burn the books; Draco had threatened to burn the portrait of Salazar Slytherin that hung on his wall, a family heirloom. 

It would have been quite comical had he not been a part of it. They had stood, their wands at the ready, yelling at each other that the other had _better_ not burn that or there would be _serious_ consequences. In the end, nothing had been burned. Draco had been allowed to keep his poetry and Lucius had been allowed to keep his heirloom. Neither of them had talked since, however, because later that spring Lucius had been sent to Azkaban for the breaking into The Department of Mysteries and for being a Death Eater. 

Draco did feel some remorse over the fact that that had been their last discussion, or at least he liked to think so. In reality, he really only felt remorse that he hadn't figured out how to make Potter feel sorry about it without showing any remorse or sorrow. Draco Malfoy really loathed when people knew what he was feeling. 

Actually, that wasn't quite true, he mused to himself. He didn't mind them knowing he was happy or angry. He only minded if someone, especially Harry Potter, knew he was sad, humiliated, remorseful, or something of that sort. He wasn't quite sure why this was, and frankly he didn't really care. 

He kicked a clump of leaves to emphasize this point and then continued his bored stroll around the lake. And that was when Hermione Granger caught up to him. 

"Hey, Malfoy!" she had said, her voice rose not quite to a yell but loud enough to be heard. 

Draco Malfoy winced slightly and turned around. _Bugger off, Granger. He thought, but didn't say; after a while even the thickest realized that insulting someone like Hermione Granger just meant a sharp slap in the face. Instead, he said nothing but just waited. It wasn't that he wanted to wait for her. It wasn't even that he was interested in what she had to say. It was simply that he didn't have another choice. There was no running away from her without looking like an idiot and there was nowhere to go, anyway. And even if he had felt like paying the price to insult her, insults didn't seem to deter the determined muggle-born when she wanted something. It was a trait Draco found __most annoying. _

"What?" he asked, attempting a cool tone of voice, as she stopped a few feet in front of him. 

Either the tone of voice hadn't worked or Granger simply didn't care. She rolled her eyes and said, "Malfoy, I'd like to make a deal with you." She sounded so serious and so much as if she would rather be saying, "Malfoy, I'd like to strangle you and wipe that smug smile off your face," that he had to try very hard to fight amusement. 

"Oh?" he asked instead, raising one eyebrow in skepticism. "What is it? Finally decided to admit I'm gorgeous, Granger?" he had to admit, that wasn't exactly the strongest come-back he'd ever had, but she'd caught him unawares. What on earth would she possibly want to bargain about with _him? _

Hermione Granger scowled fiercely at him and gave him a very superior look. "Malfoy," she said, her voice dripping scorn, "if I were to admit that _you_ were gorgeous, I would also have to say that Neville Longbottom is gorgeous. You two really are built quite along the same lines, aren't you?" 

He gave her a scowl and snapped back. "You wish, Granger. If _only_ your little boyfriend were so good looking as I!" 

Hermione looked as though she were attempting to count to ten. Finally, she simply shook her head, sighed and said, "Enough, Malfoy. I didn't come here to trade insults. I came here to ask you to do something." 

"What is it already?" he asked, a touch impatient. 

"Well, I assume you've noticed that Harry hasn't been his usual self lately," she said slowly, as if she were trying to figure out how to phrase what she was trying to say. 

"Yeah, it's a nice change, isn't it?" he asked lightly, wishing the words could be true. The truth was that, however much he might hate Potter, hate his smug smile and his laughing eyes and his _liveliness, he found himself missing it all, and especially missing the fights. He goddamn bloody _missed_ seeing Potter yell, seeing that look of triumph when he won, seeing his face flushed in anger or embarrassment. It wasn't bloody fair how life always played you like that. _

Hermione Granger was apparently, among other things, a mind reader. She smirked (_Smirked!_ Draco thought, outraged) and said, "That's what you'd like to think, isn't it Malfoy? You'd like to believe you like it better now that he _completely ignores you. But you don't, Malfoy, because you can't stand it when people ignore you, especially him. And you find yourself outrageously _missing_ the way he used smirk and yell and blush and grin, don't you?" the expression on his face must have given him away, for she smiled and said, "Yes, I thought you might. So, what do you think about helping me get him to feel again?" _

Draco looked incredulously at her. "You want me to just help you? I'm a Slytherin, Granger. I don't just do things out of the kindness of my bloody _heart_!"

Hermione Granger gave him a set look. "Name your price." 

Draco had to think about this. If she was telling the truth, this was a wonderful opportunity. But first he had to specify the rules. "How, exactly, am I helping you? What will I have to do?"

"Anything you like," she answered, "within reason, of course. I just want him to start acting like a human being again; I don't care how you do it, short of killing him, throwing him or any of his friends to Voldemort, or causing serious harm." 

Draco perked up at this. "So, I could, say, punch him?" a nod. "Or insult you?" another nod. "Or…insult his parents and all his friends and this school and the old idiot who calls himself Headmaster?"

"Whatever you think will work, within the previous specifications." 

"Good. Now, back to what I get." 

"Do you even need anything aside from a free pass to insult him and the rest of us for as long as he remains a human robot?" She asked skeptically. 

He looked mildly affronted. "Just because I hate you lot doesn't mean that's the only thing I need! I'm not shallow, you know. I'll have you know I'm in need of many things – money," she snorted and he scowled, "fame, a personal library, a life's supply of chocolate pudding, a passing grade in Defense Against the Dark Arts…" he looked pointedly at her. 

She sighed. "What do you want me to do? I can do your homework, but I won't make it perfect – Tonks knows my style and she'll know it's not you writing it. I can tutor you in it, if you like, but I'm not as good as, say, Harry." There was a gleam of a plot in her eye. 

Draco caught on quickly. "You think that he might be startled enough by your request to break out of his shell a bit." 

"You never know, but it would be convenient, you must admit. We could kill two birds with one stone." 

"We'll try. I'll be in the Charms classroom on the fourth floor at two o'clock. Can you get him there?" 

Again there was an extremely determined expression on the girl's face. "I'll give it my best. You just figure out how to startle him. If he doesn't startle, then just do whatever you think is best. I'll see you then, Malfoy." 

And with that she went walking back up to the castle, leaving Draco Malfoy to again ponder November. Except that now it seemed far too dull. With a sight of frustration and a half-hearted kick at a pile of leaves, he headed up to Hogwarts after Hermione Granger, wondering just what he'd gotten himself into. He had a very bad feeling about all of this. 

***


End file.
